for anyone wondering when/how their ex will come to their senses flowersdirtandgardengirl: In my life I have known ONE person and one person only who has f-ed up, cheated and later regretted it. One person. And I know a lot of people. And a lot of them have f-ed up, some of them have cheated, a great deal of them have had huge, dramatic break ups, precious few of them have gotten back together.
The one person who I know that messed up had moved to London with her bf. I can't remember now how long they were there but I know that she ended up meeting some other guy, had an affair, got pregnant, broke up with her bf, he moved back to the states, she planned on staying.
At some point however, and not too long after her ebf left her, reality set in. She moved back to the states, thought about having the child with this other guy for about 2-3 weeks, and decided against it.
From that point forward she did everything in her power and with such clear intention to get her ex back that she could. There were no questions about it, no "what is she thinking, does she want to be with me, is she giving me false hope"? She called him. She said, I'm sorry. I messed up. I love you, not him. Please take me back. I'm sorry. I messed up. I love you. Please take me back.
That clear, that unequivocal.
I haven't talked to her much since so I don't know what the outcome was. Understandably the ex was a little upset about the entire thing and wasn't about to make any hasty decisions. She was more than willing to wait around for him to decide. Again. No questions. No games. No maybe this, maybe that. I know he loved her and I could see that she loved him. I know she regretted her decision every day and didn't do anything to try to hide it. I know she regretted her decision every day and didn't go out to bars or clubs and try to sleep with anyone else all the while still calling her ex. I know she made her intentions clear and without question.
So for all of us, myself still at times included, who are wondering if/when/why/how our exes are going to try to win us back, keep this little parable in mind. If they wanted to, if they wanted us back, if they missed us at all, they would tell us and we would know.
I can't speak for everyone but I'm fairly certain that all of our exes have fully functioning facilities that are not precluding them from contacting us and saying "I'm sorry, please come home". Trying to figure out what they mean by this or by that cryptic message or shady action is only prolonging the torture of this, in my humble opinion.
I still do it. I still think and wonder and am amazed that he hasn't come to his senses. I still think to myself, maybe now?? Maybe he's finally figured it out now?? But then I remember myself, if he had, if he has, he's got my number, he knows how to find me. If he had, then he would.
If they had, then they would. Simple as that. Simple and painful as that.
~gg
Re: for anyone wondering when/how their ex will come to their senses dumpling: thanks, gg- you are always the voice of reason.
i know he knows how to find me...
Re: for anyone wondering when/how their ex will come to their senses andya: I do tend to agree with in some cases, when someone is ready to come back to you, if they truely want to, they will, but my situation was a little different, so I have to dissagree to the extent that there are exceptions. My wife - We have been together 9 year and have been married ~3 of those - went to a bachelorette party before her best friend's wedding last spring. I trusted her to go, not that I shouldn't have, and she made a mistake. Having no real experience with drinking, she got completely wasted, and made a wrong decision in having sex with someone very close to me. She didn't mention it to me until this fall. Looking back I could see that she was pulling away from me after that date, but the signs were too subtle to notice. All of a sudden in october I had the big old famous "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" line dropped on me.
I'm not one to take things sitting down, and I really love her so I probed around until she admitted she had made a mistake, and said she didn't mean to, but that that wasn't the sole reason she was leaving me. She said she wanted to pursue the dreams she had before she met me. This hurt, but I told her it'd hurt me, but if that was what she needed to do, to just do it. What I didn't see was that she wasn't concerned with her dreams all that much. She left one time for about 2 days and she was back, but she still wasn't very loving, and still stuck to her line about not being "In Love" with me anymore. For the past few months I've been trying and trying, noticing the mistakes I made (I made a ton of them), fixing my problems, and handing my love and commitement to her on a golden platter. The truth in the situation came out today. She does love me, that's why she can't stand to leave, but the guilt is tearing her up. She's finding it hard to deal with the guilt and finds herself thinking that if she leaves the guilt will go away.
Suddenly I find myself feeling helpless because after all I'm in control of my own feelings, but there's little I can do to help her with hers in comparison. Although knowing the source of the problem is reassuring, now I'm faced with a problem I'm not equipped well to help with.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, but I mainly meant this as a contrast to the "sitting back and waiting is the only way" feeling I got from the original message. My suggestion is that in some cases that may do more harm than good if the person who is leaving you is doing so due to self-esteem, guilt and psychological issues. In those cases - I hope - love, support, and help through their rough time is what they may not openly ask for, but really need.
Now I am not a psychologist, and have very little formal training, especially on this subject, so I won't be held responsible if my opinion messes up your life or something, but this is how I feel.
Re: for anyone wondering when/how their ex will come to their senses MikeB: Hi.
I agree with gg - to some extend.
I agree that wondering about cryptic signals that might mean that s/he wants you back is a bad idea - but as long as you're still loving your ex your longing will often take control and then you can't help it and it happens - you find yourself thinking along those lines.
Of course s/he knowns how to contact you, but sometimes only a (few) get-together(s) will make her/him reconsider. I know that in most cases seperated couples don't get together again, but I know of 3 couples that have gotten together again.
The first - a friend of my ex. Together again after six months of separation. They met again, and during their meeting they kissed and got together again. Well they aren't together anymore - but they finally seperated because of something that had nothing to do with their first breakup.
The second - my cousin. He and his girlfriend broke up after a huge fight. Now, three years later they've forgiven another and are moving together now - they realized that although they had some fights they were the best thing that ever happened to them.
The third - my parents. They had a relationship for a year when they were 16-17, then my father broke up with my mother. Three years later they met again and realized that the other was the one they really wanted. A few years later they married and they still love each other to this day.
In all three cases, it wasn't a phonecall or a letter saying "Please forgive me, please come home." - it was a get-together (or more than one) that made them reconsider...
Re: for anyone wondering when/how their ex will come to their senses flowersdirtandgardengirl: Hi Andya,
It's absolutely true that marriages and relationships can survive infidelity. With a great deal of support and effort and time and blood, sweat and tears (okay, maybe no blood), I believe they can. But both partners have got to be 150% willing and comitted. Both partners. If your wife isn't coming to you and saying 150% I want to make this work, I'm sorry for what I've done (case in point, the woman I know who did just that) then I'm very sad to say that I'd be hard pressed to say she's 150% comitted to making it work.
I'm sorry if I protrayed a sense of "we should all just sit back and wait for our exes to come to their senses". Sadly, this was the complete antithesis of what I was thinking. What I was thinking was that we (ME) should stop waiting around, should stop thinking that "someday" they'll come to their sense or whatever, or wondering what/why they are doing the things they are doing.
I went through a great deal of anguish trying to make sense of my break up. I don't think there's anyway to get around that. I asked all the same questions. When? How? Why? And as I read posts recently I see the same questions popping up:
Why is she/he doing _______? What does she/he mean by_______?
The answer that we want (because they are secretly trying to get you back but are suddenly incapable of using the words: I'm sorry, I love you, please take me back) is sadly and far too often not the actual answers (they are cowardly, or selfish, or sacred to be alone, or guilty or drunk or lying).
So I wrote this to myself and to anyone else who might be listening and wondering: when will they realize? Probably never. Maybe someday. Likely not in any given time that will actually allow for reconcilation. Maybe not until you've met someone new and finally, fully, really moved on. Maybe never. Maybe never.
It wasn't to say: just wait around and eventually your ex will figure it out. I'm very sorry to say it to myself and anyone else, but I really no longer believe that, nor do I think waiting around for anything but your own heart to heal and your own sense of self to rebound is any kind of good idea at all.
Again, just my thoughts.
~gg
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